Denouement
by Robinjay
Summary: Once it began, Angelina and Fred's relationship never seemed to end. They always return to each other, but this time is different. War changes everything, including the dynamic of their relationship, and not necessarily for the better. This story follows them throughout the year leading up to the final battle, and can be read as a companion piece to Free Falling or alone.


He comes to her first in July. It's not actually their first time together, but it is the first time in months, and it is the first time he appears at her doorstep without warning, without explanation and even without words. Alicia is traveling with the Tornadoes, and so Angelina's resigned herself to a quiet night—not unwelcome given the long days at her job with _The Daily Prophet_ —when someone flings the door open. The energy broiling within the man is electric, is violent and fantastic and terrifying. His hair flies in fifteen directions, but every strand crackles with unreleased tension.

"Fred," she breathes, and he turns to her with smoldering amber eyes that remind her, Merlin yes, this is why she always returned.

"Angie," he says in return, still standing by the door. His skin shimmers and blurs as he thrums with this powerful energy. She wants to lay her finger across his arm and feel the motion for herself.

She embraces him as she would a friend, arms encircling him tightly and chin pressed to his shoulder. "I'm so happy you're alive," she whispers. "I'm so happy." She treasures the feel of each breath he exhales and the sensation of his chest expanding and contracting beneath her. He is viscerally, tangibly alive, and she is grateful for her friend.

Then he shatters her embrace and all pretenses of friendship fall away with these shards.

Suddenly, he is grabbing her, gripping her, slamming her against the wall so only millimeters separates their faces and she feels the actual air in his breath hot against her face. She scans his inscrutable expression searching for the familiar, but finds only scorching heat.

"Fred," she whispers again, trembling beneath his gaze. "Fred, say something."

He kisses her hard, and she thinks he never was good at following orders, especially hers. She wants to know why he is here and what happened to build up this pool of heat and movement in his body, but she knows better. When he kisses her like this, like if he presses hard enough he might create diamonds in her mouth, she can only kiss back, can only wrap her arms around him and bury her hands in soft hair.

They fuck against the wall of the living room, and then again on the floor. She feels the bruises that trail along her back, but Fred's mouth is like a shot of adrenaline, like firewhiskey and fireworks in the way it drowns out every other sensation. She is blinded by him, she is consumed by him, and when at last he is done, he leaves her lying on the floor. Sweat glistens along the wood, and it smells vaguely like smoke and copper. He does not return that night, nor does she see him at all for the next several days.

On Friday night dinner at Lee's, both he and George appear and it's all Angelina can do to contain her gasp. A bandage winds its way around his head, covering the right side, and the conversation reveals that now only a hole remains where once an ear stood. George cracks a predictable joke, and Fred's smile is tight and angry as he listens to his twin recount the bare bones of the story (he can't tell them everything for fear of revealing confidential Order information), and she thinks, this must be new. She only saw him last week, entirely whole.

"When did this happen?" she asks, interrupting his description of Professor Lupin's duel against a Death Eater.

"A few days ago," he says, tapping the side of his head lightly. "I'm still getting used to it, mind you, so don't go shouting at me from this side. It kinda starts throbbing if you do that."

She glances at Fred, but his gaze is steadily fixed upon his twin. His fingers curl into a fist as George finishes the story, and she knows. She knows he came to her because of George and because of Moody. When George is done, Fred picks up the conversation, remarking on George's inadequate use of ear-related humor, and she realizes he will not acknowledge what happened. Alicia and Katie, both seated at the table, respond with suitable expressions of horror and laughter as the conversation twists and winds its way through tragedy and humor as only a wartime discussion can. She laughs too, but her eyes drift back towards Fred and towards his sparkling eyes and clenched fists and she wonders how a man can contain so much for so long.

They (she, Alicia and Katie) leave Lee's that night, but George and Fred stay, and Angelina knows they're discussing Order business. Part of her wants to say yes, I'm in, let me help too, but then she looks at her friends, especially muggleborn Katie, and she knows she can do more good there than she ever could risking her life on the frontlines. It may sound selfish or even cowardly, but it's the truth. She can support her friends better than anything else.

She has almost written off Fred's visit as a onetime fluke, a mistake, a heat of the moment reaction, when he comes again, nearly a month after the first time. He is equally as silent as before, only saying her name when he walks in the door, but his appearance raises more questions. For one, he is spattered in blood.

"What happened?" she gasps, fingering the red-spotted fabric on the hem of shirt. "Are you okay?"

"It's not mine," he says shortly, and that's all he reveals before kissing her fiercely and beginning the cycle anew. This time, they make it to the couch for the first round (much to the delight of her back) and to the bed for subsequent ones. Fred is aggressive, surprisingly so. He was never gentle when they were together, but there had always been a playfulness to his aggression, a mischievous vibe as approached her. Now his eyes hold only steel and no spark. She enjoys the sex in a way—it's certainly invigorating, and Fred Weasley always knew his way around women—but it feels different than their previous times. It feels adult and far too old for two eighteen year olds, but she takes what she can get and when he leaves she wraps the sheets around her and remembers their first time together some two years ago.

After the fourth time she tells Alicia about their liaison. Alicia, to her credit, tries to act surprised but can't quite pull it off.

"I mean, you guys never really ended things, did you?" she says a little condescendingly.

"We haven't been together since he got kicked off the Quidditch team," Angelina replies petulantly.

"Yes, but you still slept with him the rest of year," reasons Alicia, and Angelina thinks about how logic and facts are just so cruelly unwilling to bend her way sometimes. "And even last year whenever we were all drunk, you and he would somehow end up in his room and I wouldn't see you till the next day."

"I know, I know," says Angelina, "but this is different. Yeah, we'd have sex from time to time last year, but we hadn't done anything in months. And then suddenly he starts showing up every other week and he's…"

"He's what, Ange?" prompts Alicia.

"He's different, is all. Sometimes I feel like it's more of an act of release than of pleasure for him. He hardly speaks, he never explains what happened. He's…rougher than he used to be."

"Hmm," Alicia hums. "Maybe, well, things have just been harder this year? He's looking for something different. Are you okay with what he's doing? He's not being too aggressive?"

"No, no," Angelina reassures her friend. "He's still Fred. It's not bad sex, either, you know. It's much better if we make it to the bed, though."

"Are you saying," speaks Alicia slowly, "that you two have been going at it all around the flat?"

"Not everywhere," says Angelina casually. "Just a few places."

"A few places?" shrieks Alicia. "Like right where we are right now? Did you bother to clean up afterwards?"

Angelina spends the next few minutes calming Alicia down and telling a few bald-faced lies about where exactly they had and had not done it. She grins to herself when Alicia sits on that one couch cushion, but she says nothing.

The seventh time, she actually visits his flat. George is out for the night, and Fred has an issue of _The Quibbler_ draped over the desk in his bedroom. Despite the late hour, she left the moment she received his patronus message, stopping only to freshen up a little.

"Ferrick Mosby is dead," he says by way of an opener, and Angelina stops dead in her tracks.

"You mean, the Ferrick Mosby two years above us? That Ferrick?"

"Do you know another one?" asks Fred a little harshly. He takes his shirt off and is working on his belt when she stops him.

"So, what, you tell me that someone we both knew is dead and now we have sex? No transition? No moment of reflection? Just sex?"

"That is what you came here for," he says pointedly.

"Well, yes, but then you told me someone two years above us in Gryffindor died, so excuse me for not feeling like playing around with your dick at the moment," she replies coldly.

Fred holds up his hands. "I'm sorry if it came off that way, Ange. I just heard the news, and I thought I should share it with you. Whatever you want to do is fine by me."

She considers his statement. She never felt particularly close to Ferrick—he was a boy two years above her, a bit quieter, and she'd spoken to him only a dozen times or so throughout their years at Hogwarts together. Still, a boy only two years older than her was dead, and death demanded sadness and grief.

Fred stands before her, shirtless and halfway out of his pants. A small beard is beginning to show on his cheeks, small enough that it could be intentional or the result of several missed shaving days. She assesses him carefully; for the first time since their trysts began, he seems calm. A hard glint in his eye, sure, but that never leaves these days, even among friends.

Sighing, she begins removing her shirt. Fred grins, and she realizes he hasn't smiled like that at her alone in some time. This revelation doesn't erase Ferrick's death, but it softens the edges of her guilt as she pulls him closer and finishes removing his jeans. Ferrick is dead, and so are others like him, but they can still live.

The thirteenth time he calls her, they're halfway through a heady make out session before she realizes he's actively bleeding.

"Fred," she shrieks, "you're bleeding!"

"Oh, what, this?" he asks nonchalantly pointing to a long gash on his bicep. "I thought it stopped."

"Well, it probably did before you used your arm to pick me up," she says exasperatedly.

He pokes at it with his finger and grimaces. "I guess you'd like me to take care of it before we continue?"

She rolls her eyes. "I'd prefer if you didn't bleed on me, yes."

He grins wryly. "And here I thought witches loved a man with battle scars."

Angelina snorts. "Did Lee tell you that? If so, you should never trust his advice. He thinks he understands women, but he once asked Alicia if she'd prefer a valentine in the form of a singing toad or a dancing pixie."

Fred laughs loudly, and the sound echoes around the flat and suffuses the air with a welcome warmth. It's a laugh she hasn't heard in private in a long time.

"That man will never stop trying, will he?" he says. He summons the first aid kit over to him, and it floats over from the cupboard almost lazily. "Was he wrong about this?" he asks, gesturing to his wound. "Are you impressed?"

"You've had worse playing Quidditch," she says dismissively. "For that matter, you and George probably blew yourselves up at least once or twice inventing everything in the shop."

"You're not wrong," says Fred, and he begins to cast a healing spell, but the cut is on his wand arm, so his first attempt falters.

"Let me," she insists. "I'm not the best at healing spells, but for something like this, you should be fine." She casts her spell and then wraps a bandage around his arm for good measure. She pats it smugly. "Not too shabby."

"Are we ready to begin again?" he asks impatiently.

"As long as you're not hiding anything else from me."

She spends the night with him, and after he falls asleep, she strokes the bandage absentmindedly, feeling the soft texture of the fabric and the curve of his arm. She presses slightly too hard, and he starts awake.

"What is it?" he mutters sleepily, voice muffled by his pillow.

She doesn't respond at first, unsure of what to say. She decides eventually on, "be safe."

He chuckles. "You know me," he murmurs and drifts back into the realm of unconsciousness.

She does know him, and it's not a comforting thought.

The mood of each time fluctuates. Sometimes, she can almost pretend they're back in Hogwarts, ensconced within the Room of Requirement or tucked away in his four poster bed. He jokes with her, and she laughs, and his edges don't cut the air. Other times, he resembles the Fred who first appeared in July, taciturn yet forceful. She accepts both versions of him, but more often than not, it's the latter Fred who appears.

One evening, his temperament is especially intense. He wastes no time in pressing her against the hard wood of his bedroom wall and nearly tears her shirt as he yanks it off of her. No humor lights his eyes when she receives a rare glimpse of them. He avoids eye contact with her throughout the process.

When she lies back against the pillow, panting from their latest round, she glances over at him. His expression is fixed on some focal point on the ceiling, and his body seems to be unnaturally still.

"What happened?" she asks quietly, words drifting into the air. "I know you probably can't tell me any details, but at least tell me something."

He huffs out a bitter laugh. "Three people died is what happened."

She freezes. "Three people? Did…were they people you knew?"

"Three muggles George and I and someone were supposed to be escorting. We were outnumbered three to one."

"Fred," she breathes, "I'm so sorry."

She hears him gulp. "I am too."

"I'm surprised you still wanted to see me," she remarks.

"Why?" he asks, turning to her. "It's not like this hasn't happened before."

This information sinks into her brain slowly, like something sinking sluggishly into molasses.

"It has? You mean, you've come here after people have died?"

He looks puzzled now. "At least seven or eight times. I thought you knew."

His last statement rankles her. "You thought I knew? How would I know, Fred? You never tell me anything!"

"I tell you what I can," he corrects.

"Which usually amounts to practically nothing." She sits up, all post-sex exhaustion forgotten. "Is that why you do this? Is sex with me a way of, I don't know, dealing with the fact that people just died?"

"That's not all of it," he says, and she feels her temperature rise from a simmer to a near-boil. "I mean, tonight, yes, but not all of the time. Most of the time, it's something else."

"Something else," she repeats. "When it's not death, it's 'something else.' Fred Weasley, you do know how to flatter a girl."

He sits up now. "Ange, we're friends. We've been around the block together. I thought you liked it."

"I did like it," she snaps harshly. "I do. I just thought…I didn't realize I was just a way for you to channel your emotions about death or whatever else you can't talk about."

"It's not that," he backtracks. "Ange, you know how I feel about you. You're bloody gorgeous and hilarious and brilliant at sex. If you prefer, I can just go to someone else next time, though. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable."

Those who know Angelina quickly familiarize themselves with different stages of her temper. Most of her friends have witnessed at least one of her more fiery outbursts, but Fred Weasley might be only the second person to see the quiet stage of anger.

"Someone else?" she whispers venomously. "You go to someone else?"

Fred's expression becomes guarded, and he eyes her warily. "Well, we're not exclusive. You're not available all of the time, so I have…found other people in the past."

"Who is this other girl?"

"You're the only regular one," he says, as if this should reassure her. "I spent a few nights with this muggle girl in St. Ottery's, but everyone else has been a onetime deal." His expression transforms into something approaching confused, sympathetic and even a tad condescending. "We haven't been officially together in over two years, Ange. There's no rule."

Angelina throws off the sheets and begins searching for her clothes scattered about the floor. "You know, when I told Alicia we had started sleeping together again, she told me we never really broke up. I told her exactly what you told me, but you know what? It hasn't always felt like it. Not when I haven't fucked anyone but you in nearly a year, not when I'm spending nights with you almost on a weekly basis."

Fred is infuriatingly calm. "Sleeping together doesn't mean we're dating, Ange."

"No, it doesn't. But, we're not just two people, Fred. We have history that we can't ignore." She shakes her head angrily. "And then you tell me that you've been using me to, I don't know, blow off steam after people died." She's more than halfway dressed at this point.

Fred is silent. His orange hair gleams in the light, but his eyes are dully unapologetic. She feel seventeen again, breaking up with for the first time. She forgot, somehow, in the haze of sex and his unnerving charm, exactly why they hadn't worked the before. Now she remembers.

"You just don't get it, Fred," she spits at him. "Your actions have consequences. Just because you're not a Death Eater doesn't mean you can't hurt people."

With those words, she storms out of the room and apparates back to her flat the second she's past the wards. It's not until she's standing alone in the living room of her flat that she feels the warmth of the tears that have soaked her cheeks.

He doesn't approach her again. For a month, they only see each other twice and never alone. He and George are mostly on the run these days, and there haven't been regular meals at Lee's for some time. Katie is in hiding, and Alicia is trying to focus on Quidditch in spite of the war around them. Time passes hollowly.

On May 2nd, her D.A. coin glows with heat, and she along with Alicia and Katie travel to Hogwarts. She recognizes so many familiar faces, including people like Oliver Wood, her old Quidditch captain, someone she hadn't expected to see. Against her will, her eyes land on the figure of Fred Weasley. He catches her eye and looks away. A disappointment, she thinks, but not surprising.

Harry, Ron and Hermione disappear, leaving the rest of the group fidgeting and chittering amongst themselves. Neville begins talking to the crowd—since when was he in charge?—and she listens until someone yanks her forcefully away.

"What are you—Fred!" she exclaims. He drags her to a secluded corner away from their friends. His eyes are inscrutable.

"I needed to see you," he says.

"I'm here," she replies stiffly.

He looks directly at her, eyes smoldering, and a chill runs through her body. "Angelina, I'm sorry for the way things went. What I said was the truth, harsh as it is, but it doesn't mean it was right." He shakes his head. "What I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry I hurt you. You're one of my best friends and I need you to know that while there have been other girls, there's never been another girl like you. I promise."

She's about to reply when suddenly a cheer echoes from the crowd. Neville has called the students to action, and people are preparing to leave. Alicia is gesturing for her to come along, so Angelina turns to Fred.

"Fred, I—

"I know," he says, and he pulls her in for a kiss, one that is gentle and sweet and achingly simple. When he pulls away, he smiles at her, whispers, "I'll see you on the other side," and vanishes into the crowd with George.

When she sees Fred's body in the great hall, a wave of irrational fury washes over her. Logically, her first response ought to be grief or confusion or desire for revenge, but instead all she can think is, _you lied_. "See you on the other side," he told her, and here he is, unseeing and unable to respond.

All of the Weasleys are gathered around their fallen brother or son. She see Ginny, stony-faced and staring at her brother. Ron is weeping, and so are Percy and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Charlie Weasley, her former Quidditch captain whom she hasn't seen since he left Hogwarts, is embracing another red-hair man that must be Bill. She can't see either of their faces, but she envisions the grief ravaging their expressions. The worst of all of them is George. Tears stream down his face, but unlike the rest of his family are obviously, visibly anguished, he just looks lost. He cradles Fred's head in his lap, eyes wide with disbelief, and Angelina has to look away. No matter their relationship, she is not family, and she has no right to intrude into their lives at this moment.

She seeks out Alicia and Katie and finds them sitting at a table near Oliver Wood. When she breaks the news, Alicia bursts into tears, Katie gasps and claps a hand over her mouth, and Oliver sits there dumbfounded, speechless. Lee must somewhere, but she doesn't have the heart to seek him out. She doesn't want to see one more broken friend that night. She mourns with her friends, and when Harry finally topples Lord Voldemort, she rejoices with everyone else and tries to push away the tide of grief threatening to breach the surface at any moment. She doesn't know if she succeeds, but no one seems to care. No one is free of sadness this night.

It's not until the memorial that she understands her initial reaction to his death, the swell of fury, begins to make sense. She stands in front of the memorial stone inscribed with the names of far too many people and traces her finger across his name. Fred Weasley. One name among many, but unlike the other names carved into the white marble, this one is carved into her heart as well.

"You told me, 'I know,'" she whispers. "What does that mean, you bastard? What did you know? What did you think I was saying?"

After the initial shock of his death dissipated, she spent hours reflecting on her last interaction with him. Parts of it were cryptic-was he simply apologizing, or had he wanted to reconcile with her and resume their relationship, whatever it was? There was no other girl like you, he said, and then he kissed her. So much she wanted to ask him, but now, standing in front of the memorial, she can only speak to his ghost. Not even his ghost, she thinks. His memory. Ghosts can respond and interact with the world in their own limited fashion. Fred Weasley cannot.

"You always had to have the last word, didn't you? You couldn't leave me alone." She can't help the anger rising in her voice. "I always think I'm done with you, then you find me again. I thought we were done seventh year. I thought we were done after you left Hogwarts. I thought we were really done last March, and then again this April, but you always found me. And I always said yes."

She closes her eyes and leans against the stone, feeling the cool, smooth texture of it on her cheek. It is so unlike Fred, she thinks, this still, cold monument. He loved things that moved and created heat. He would have wanted something dynamic and eye-popping. Nothing this serene.

"I probably would have said yes, this time, you know. I would have gone back to you, like I always did. And that's what hurts the most, Fred," she says, blinking away tears. "There's never an ending. Every time one of us left, this little voice in my head told me it was just a matter of time. Time will bring you back to me, so no need to worry." She gulps. "That's not how it works anymore. Time just carries me farther away, and you never gave me an ending. You never gave me an ending."

She remains at the monument for several more minutes, breathing in the humid summer air and listening to the steady chirp of birds in the bushes and trees. She smells the freshly dug earth from the base of the stone and the salt from the tears on her own face. After a time, she realizes she is not alone when she hears the steady breathing of another person nearby.

George looks out onto the grassy fields, the little buttercups and daisies peaking out from the soft ground, and he sees nothing. His glazed eyes flit over her and the trees and all of the Hogwarts grounds which once inspired so much joy and excitement, and Angelina knows she is not the only person who feels incomplete, like limbless tree or a bolt of lightning deprived of the accompanying thunder. In fact, between the two of them, she knows who feels more lost and adrift in this world and who, more than ever, needs the support of someone who can understand the magnitude of his empty space.

So she swallows her anger and her grief like bitter coffee grounds, and she buries her confusion and questions deep within the cold crevices of her heart. She walks over to George Weasley that day, and when acting Prime Minister Shacklebolt announces that all who fought at Hogwarts have the right to be trained as an auror, she decides she wants to fight like Fred did. She wants to be on the front lines, to be the one who comes home and tells the one she loves about the wars outside and inside as Fred never did. There will be no relief from uncertainty, no denouement to her vignette with him, but she is brave and she is strong and she is a woman who can understand that the absence of an ending doesn't preclude the creation of a new beginning.

That day, she walks over to the twin brother of the man who broke her heart.

"Hi, George," she says softly, and enters the next story.


End file.
